


The Act of Giving

by imperfectcircle



Series: Stories by theme: Crossovers [7]
Category: British Comedian RPF, Lewis - Fandom
Genre: Crossover, Id Fic, Multi, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-14
Updated: 2010-07-14
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:25:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectcircle/pseuds/imperfectcircle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James didn't bother to hide the amusement on his face. There was no one around to see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Act of Giving

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt:
> 
> _Charlie Brooker/James Hathaway off of Lewis._
> 
> _It's a niche pairing, I admit, but I live in hope._

James stopped outside the B&amp;B to light his cigarette. Quitting was not, he had to admit, going as planned.

If he just happened to be failing to quit beneath the open window of the two comedians' room, well, perhaps some nicotine clouds had silver linings.

"We can rely on his discretion?" Mitchell repeated, voice quavering with affront. "Well, that's all right then, as long as we can rely on his discretion, why not --"

"David," the other one -- Brooker -- said.

"-- confess? Yes, Detective Inspector, we committed the murders, let us tell you all about it just as long as you promise not to tell another soul. What sort of --"

"David."

"What? I'm panicking, am I? Of course I'm bloody panicking: a man was murdered in the room next to ours. A more salient question is why the ever-cunting fuck you _aren't_ panicking."

"David, the sergeant --"

"The one who looked like the ghost of Christmas future, or the one who looked like he'd just stepped out of one of your more specialised wank mags?"

There was a sound like a hand being clapped over a mouth.

"David, he's directly outside." Then, voice slightly raised: "Never quit, sergeant. A murder will take place one thin wall away from where you were sleeping, and all you'll be able to think is, 'Is that sick fuck really wasting his lungs on a B&amp;H lite?'"

James didn't bother to hide the amusement on his face. There was no one around to see. "Thank you, sir," he called up.

There was a pause, and the sound of a hand being removed from its position over a mouth.

Hathaway considered his options. "I don't wish to presume, but I think by my inspector's discretion, he meant your relationship."

"What?" Mitchell sounded honestly surprised. "But apart from Charlie's mother, who's just glad he won't die alone, my parents, who in the face of all available evidence still think I can do better, me and Charlie, literally -- and I don't use this word lightly -- literally no one cares."

There was another pause. Hathaway imagined he could hear Brooker raising his eyebrows pointedly.

"What?" Mitchell said again. "Is my panicked babble distressing you? Well, frankly, your lack of panicked babble is distressing me. Are you a sociopath or a robot? Or a sociopathic robot?"

"You know he can still hear us," Brooker said. "Also, wouldn't a robot sociopath go around killing other robots?"

James risked a cheery wave in the direction of the window.

"Do I look like a man who cares about either of those points?" Mitchell asked.

James imagined not.

The next pause had an assessing quality to it. "No. No, you look like a man who needs a drink." Another pause. "Coming, detective?"

===

James went to get the drinks in.

The two of them, Brooker and Mitchell, were sitting a cautious distance apart: near but not in each other's personal space. You'd not peg them for a couple, but once you knew it, it was hard not to see the way they were turned ever so slightly towards each other, a protective bubble against the world.

Brooker said something that made Mitchell laugh. Mitchell's face lit up, and Brooker's relaxed a fraction, a hint of a smile curving his lips.

James didn't let things like that tug at his heart. He was happy as he was; he was _safe_ as he was, no risk of complications that would get in the way of the job. It was better this way.

Mitchell surprised a laugh out of Brooker this time, an ugly seal-bark of a laugh that shouldn't have made Mitchell's eyes go soft.

Briefly, privately, James hated them both.

"Right," he said, plonking the pints down in front of Mitchell and Brooker. "I bought the drinks, now you solve the crime."

The two of them gave him matching assessing looks. They had lived-in faces, the pair of them. Brooker's was a patchwork of late nights, hangovers and barely concealed rage, while Mitchell's had hopes and disappointments written over each other in large print and laugh lines.

"Don't say it," said Brooker, still looking at James but clearly talking to Mitchell.

"Say what?" Mitchell asked, hurt but unsurprised.

"Whatever you're thinking. Don't say it."

"You realise you giving me advice on socially appropriate conversational topics is a bit like Jonathan and Russell giving us advice on phone etiquette."

If they hadn't still been studying him intently, James might have thought they'd forgotten he was there.

"You know," James said, "my inspector doesn't have a clue who you two are." Or didn't, before Hobson had given them both a quick master class in current British comedy. James had appreciated the pointers, and planned to get some extra reading in that evening.

"No?" Brooker said. "That explains the promise of discretion, at least -- he must have thought we were worth gossiping about."

James kept his face impassive.

"To be fair," Mitchell added, "if one of us had killed that poor man -- which we didn't, I should add -- that would generate a few column inches."

"We'd make that Guardian front page you've always dreamt of," Brooker said dryly.

"People would finally be able to tell the difference between me and Robert."

James gave a quick prayer of thanks to Hobson's celebrity knowledge. "He's the one who got locked up for doing Flashdance, you're the one who killed someone for Comic Relief?"

The short, sharp barks of laughter he drew from both Mitchell and Brooker were deeply satisfying.

"No jury in the land would convict me," Mitchell said thoughtfully.

Brooker nodded. "If you left the body in a bathtub full of baked beans, you'd probably get your own segment on Blue Peter."

"Here's one I killed earlier," James and Mitchell said in near-harmony.

Brooker beamed.

James ignored the flash of heat that coiled itself deep in his belly.

===

They were in time. Thank all the gods and little fishes, they were in time, and Steele was still alive, and that sick fuck couldn't hurt anyone any more.

It didn't bear thinking about -- though, of course, James still was -- but if he hadn't matched up those diary entries, if Lewis hadn't stopped for a coffee, if Steele's phone had been off--

But he had, and Lewis had, and Steele's phone hadn't, and this time round they'd saved a life. Blessings. They're there to be counted.

James's pint stared up at him, daring him to imagine a world where he'd clocked off early to catch the end of the cricket, where Lewis had been in too much of a rush for the AMT stand, where Steele had left his charger somewhere-- This wasn't how victory was supposed to feel.

"'Scuse me, officer," said a familiar voice. "These seats taken?"

James looked up to see Mitchell and Brooker hovering anxiously. Suddenly, for no reason he could think of, his mouth went dry.

"The sad thing is," Mitchell said, "he actually is the smooth one of the two of us."

"Pathetic, isn't it?" Brooker added.

James gestured at himself. "I'm in no position to judge."

That earned two weak smiles, both more nervous than his two favourite non-suspects had looked since their alibis had checked out.

"Would you care to join me?" James asked.

Brooker nudged Mitchell, who in turn nudged Brooker. They looked like guilty schoolboys.

"I'll get the drinks in," Mitchell said quickly, earning himself a betrayed glare from Brooker. "Same again?" he asked James.

James nodded.

Mitchell left, and Brooker took the seat next to James.

"It's not that I'm not pleased to see you," James started.

"But why haven't we buggered straight back to London with our D-list celebrity tails between our D-list celebrity legs the second your charming inspector said we were free to go?" Brooker finished for him.

"That."

"Um."

It was an unfortunate by-product of being a copper that James could catalogue guilt like other people catalogued their CDs. Brooker's face was three parts embarrassed guilt to one part nerves to two tiny drops of what looked almost like hope.

James had seen that look before.

Enlightenment dawned, and with it a flare of heat James couldn't ignore.

"Really?" he asked, trying for blandness and, if the sudden panic in Brooker's eyes was any indication, missing wildly.

"Where the _fuck_ is David with the drinks?" Brooker said by way of answer. "Coward."

It was entirely possible James had misread the situation completely, and the two of them just wanted to buy him a drink to say thanks. If he pushed, all he'd get in return would be a pair of scathing columns about presumptuous Oxford coppers which Lewis would never read.

"The answer's yes, by the way," he said, meeting Brooker's eyes and daring him to look away.

Brooker looked away. "_Really?_" His voice was low.

James could barely swallow. "Really."

Before they could go another round of awkward mumbling, Mitchell returned with the drinks.

"Well," Mitchell said, full of false cheer, "this is nice. Three drinks, no murders, all very--"

"David," Brooker interrupted. "David, he said yes."

The pint glass slipped from Mitchell's hand and smashed onto the floor.

===

David -- and by now, it was definitely David -- glared at James defiantly. "If you hadn't wanted weirdly, bumblingly awkward, you should probably have gone back to someone else's room."

James just smiled. Weirdly, bumblingly awkward was good. It was very good. It wasn't safe, it wasn't clean and quiet and compartmentalised away, but it was good.

Charlie stood by the window, while David sat on the edge of the bed, and James leant against the far wall, watching the two of them fumble with their shirt buttons and flash each other quick, panicked looks.

Charlie took a deep breath. "All right. I'll say it. We're all thinking it." He took another breath. "It's all very well inviting the unnaturally attractive detective back to our room, but what the hell are we supposed to do now? We were meant to crash and burn, and then sneak upstairs for a quicky to distract ourselves from the overwhelming shame and embarrassment."

James felt his smile broaden. Sex and self-deprecating jokes. He could do this.

He stepped forward, putting himself just outside Charlie's space, and took his hand, pulling him into an awkward stumble that brought their lips almost, but not quite, touching.

He leaned forward, bringing his hand up to keep Charlie from shying away, and went for the kiss.

He could feel Charlie's lips part against his, feel the rush of breath that Charlie let out with a quiet, almost pained moan.

David's intake of breath was sharp and unmistakably aroused.

The kiss went on, gentle and lush, open-mouthed and satisfying, lips against lips and a quick, tentative swipe of tongue.

He didn't open his eyes, but he could hear David leave the bed, walk over until he was standing almost, not quite close enough.

Before he could do anything, Charlie broke the kiss and reached out to David. "Come on, you daft bastard," he said, speaking to David but eyes focussed on James's mouth. "Your turn."

And before James could think, David was leaning in for a kiss. James's eyes flickered shut again, but not before they caught sight of the tangle of David and Charlie's hands together. His cock, already hard, throbbed painfully.

Charlie parted them, leaning in greedily for another kiss, the moan louder this time, coming from deep in his throat.

James's knees went weak. He couldn't stop the shudder that ran through his body, and he didn't want to.

He felt himself being manhandled towards the bed, and let two sets of hands push him down, let two sets of hands pull down his trousers and boxers together, heard two sharp intakes of breath serving as the only warning before two mouths, two hot, wet, weirdly crocked and perfectly, perfectly awkward mouths found their way to his cock.

===  
End  
===

Any and all feedback greatly appreciated.


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